11/09/11 GOP Debate

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Artie60438

Posts : 9360

Subject: 11/09/11 GOP Debate 11/9/2011, 9:05 am

The best reality show currently on the airwaves returns tonight. Herman Cain is going tp be asked more questions. Hopefully much better than the lame-ass ones asked yesterday at his presser.8pm ET on CNBC – Live StreamLocation: Oakland University in Rochester, MichiganSponsor: CNBC, the Michigan Republican Party and Oakland UniversityParticipants: Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Paul, Perry, Romney, Santorum

Artie60438

Posts : 9360

Subject: Re: 11/09/11 GOP Debate 11/9/2011, 9:06 pm

Completely boring. They finally managed to get through an entire debate without attacking each other. That's too bad for Rick Perry though. The idiot said he would eliminate 3 Federal Agencies but couldn't remember the 3rd. Expect that to be played repeatedly in news reports Say good night,Rick!

There is one bright spot. We get a bonus debate the Sat evening. They debate in South Carolina where they'll really have to outcrazy one another.

Heretic

Posts : 3094

Subject: Re: 11/09/11 GOP Debate 11/11/2011, 12:31 pm

In another thread, I wrote:

paul87920 wrote:

They seem to change their mind about who the front-runner is more often than most of them change their clothes.

Which is why Romney, like McCain, won't be taken seriously if he ends up taking it. They're desperate to replace him, and the resulting clown parade is a comedian's dream... Trump, Palin, Bachmann, Perry? And then the guy that had to say "Do I need to fake my death so you stop bothering me?! I'm not running!" Yup. "Romney 2012... cause we couldn't find anyone else. And we tried really, really hard."

Like Stewart says, there's little about Romney to celebrate, which is why so few conservatives are. The real entertainment is watching the rest of them nuke their own campaigns:

And the Perry blunder highlights another thing, too, about their platforms. They're all just an inane collection of talking points used to pander to their base. So every debate is just an exercise in memorization rather than critical thought and application. Had their been factual and logistical reasons for wanting to shut down those government organizations (other than "government is bad, mkay?"), he'd have been able to reason it out on the spot. Or should have been, anyway. That ability has yet to manifest in any of them.

Artie60438

Posts : 9360

Subject: Re: 11/09/11 GOP Debate 11/11/2011, 3:46 pm

GOP Debates in 68 Seconds

Heretic

Posts : 3094

Subject: Re: 11/09/11 GOP Debate 11/16/2011, 12:25 pm

Via Andrew Sullivan:

Quote :

At this point, I have begun to really lose it watching this crew. There are only two faintly plausible, credible presidents up there, both Mormons. The rest is beyond an embarrassment, and at this moment in history, the sheer paucity of that talent is alarming. Did anyone up there give you confidence he or she could actually lead the world countering this metastasizing debt and unemployment crisis? At best, there were noises about removing burdensome regulation on businesses and a simpler tax code. But who up there could actually bring that about?

Two other things: Romney's claim that Democrats hate profitable companies. It's an absurd statement on its face, but as a comment on reality, it's surreal. Profits are at record levels. If lack of profits is the reason for our employment crisis, there would be no crisis. Second: the boos for questioning a man in power who is credibly accused of sexual harassment and has settled such cases in the past is a sign of real contempt for women in such a situation. Both reveal to me a party hat has completely lost its way.

I'm beginning to wonder if these debates are helping Obama more than his own primary debates did in 2007 and 2008. Next to these doofuses, he seems reassuring. The losers of this debate: Perry and Cain. The winners? Gingrich and Obama.

Artie60438

Posts : 9360

Subject: Re: 11/09/11 GOP Debate 11/16/2011, 3:07 pm

Heretic wrote:

Via Andrew Sullivan:I'm beginning to wonder if these debates are helping Obama more than his own primary debates did in 2007 and 2008. Next to these doofuses, he seems reassuring. The losers of this debate:

Quote :

Perry and Cain. The winners? Gingrich and Obama.

Quote :

Many political observers believe that drawing a sharp contrast with Republicans will require Obama to go negative, but the president said he won’t have to use too harsh a tone to accomplish that.

“I don’t think it requires us to go negative in the sense of us running a bunch of ads that are false, or character assassinations,” Obama told Univision News. “It will be based on facts … We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We won’t even comment on them, we’ll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds.”

Meanwhile,there's still 14 more debates that are scheduled between now and March 19,2012

Heretic

Posts : 3094

Subject: Re: 11/09/11 GOP Debate 11/17/2011, 1:15 pm

Nothing particularly new, but still distressing. Via MarkCC at Good Math, Bad Math:

Quote :

One of the things about current politics that continually astonishes me is the profound lack of respect for reality demonstrated by so many of the people who want to be in charge of our governments.

Personally, I'm very much a liberal. I lean way towards the left-end of the political spectrum. But for the purposes of this discussion, that's irrelevant. I'm not talking about whether people are proposing the right policy, or the right politics. What I'm concerned with is the way that the don't seem to accept the fact that there are facts. Not everything is a matter of opinion. Some things are just undeniable facts, and you need to deal with them as they are. The fact that you don't like them is just irrelevant. As the old saying goes, you're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

I saw a particularly vivid example of this last week, but didn't have a chance to write it up until today. Rick Perry was presenting his proposal for how to address the problems of the American economy, particularly the dreadfully high unemployment rate. He claims that his policy will, if implemented, create 2.5 million jobs over the next four years.

The problem with that, as a proposal, is that in America, due to population growth, just to break even in employment, we need to add 200,000 jobs per month - that's how fast the pool of employable people is growing. So we need to add over two million jobs per year just to keep unemployment from rising. In other words, Perry is proposing a policy that will, according to his (probably optimistic, if he's a typical politician) estimate, result in increasing unemployment.

This is, obviously, bad.

But here's where he goes completely off the rails.

Quote :

Chris Wallace: "But how do you answer this question? Two and a half million jobs doesn't even keep pace with population growth. Our unemployment rate would increase under this goal.

Rick Perry: "I don't believe that for a minute. It's just absolutely false on its face. Americans will get back to work."

That's just blatant, stupid idiocy.

The employable population is growing. This is not something debatable. This is not something that you get to choose to believe or not to believe. This is just reality.

If you add 2.5 million jobs, and the population of employable workers seeking jobs grows by 4 million people, then the unemployment rate will get worse. That's simple arithmetic. It's not politics, it's not debatable, and it has nothing to do with what Rick Perry, or anyone else, believes. It's a simple fact.

The fact that a candidate for president can just wave his hands and deny reality - and that that isn't treated as a disqualifying error - is simply shocking.

Red or Blue, such an incredible disconnect from reality should be totally unacceptable.